Juliet received confirmation of permission today from the South African High Commission to apply for dual Australian citizenship.
If a South African national obtains foreign citizenship without permission they forfeit their birthright.
The approval process took nearly a year. I guess the bottle they threw in the water finally made its way across the pond.
The population of Victoria is five million people, but I was the only one of them today on the summit of our second-highest peak, Mt Feathertop.
The mountain was awe inspiring, humbling, powerful and beautiful in a mesmerising package of contradictions.
Normally I have Friday spare to pursue private business, but I swapped it for today to [...]
I saw a disturbing report on SBS news last night about the Aral Sea disaster in Kazakhstan. The world’s fourth-largest inland sea has been decimated by commercial exploitation and mismanagement. Here are some of the facts:
Forty years ago the Aral Sea surface was 66,100 square kilometers with an average depth of 16.1 metres and a [...]
Well it’s almost sunk in that I’m a Dad again. The twins were dragged reluctantly into the world at 10.26am and 10.27am on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 almost two weeks before Juliet would have been full term in her labor.
The vital details:
James Peter, weight 6lb 12oz
Margaret Johanna, weight 6lb
Mum and babies are doing well. Hopefully [...]
I wrote this article in February 2002 in response to a campaign by Senator Julian McGauran and Tim Fischer to obtain a pardon for English officer “Breaker” Morant, who ordered the killing of prisoners in the Anglo/South African War.
I was annoyed that McGauran took up this issue without any community consultation. It was the only [...]
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
November 8th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Congratulations! Lynnelle became an Australian citizen last Thursday evening. The US allows you to have dual citizenship by default … you only lose theirs by indicating somehow that your intention is to renounce it. Much less paperwork!
November 8th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
I checked out the Australian Government’s citizenship web site and you can apply online. We submitted Juliet’s form, only to be told:
“Our records indicate that you are not presently in the country and this service is only available to people inside Australia” or words to that effect.
That was news to us! Juliet hasn’t left Australia since she arrived in 1991.